I'm just waiting for the first claim of how much better they sound than the CDs.

For me, the only vaguely interesting thing is whether these will be cut without peak limiting. Given that they applied the same peak limiting to the 24-bit ultra-expensive USB apple release, I doubt we'll escape it here.

However, it'll (hopefully!) be a much cheaper way of owning and playing Beatles vinyl than tracking down originals, and they'll sound better than most of the 1988 vinyl remasters. (Though for Help and Rubber Soul, they'll be the same masters!). The Beatles website is mostly selling the "experience" of playing vinyl, rather than any actual sonic superiority. How strange for a vinyl press release to be TOS 8 compliant!

Cheers,David.

P.S. and so it starts...

QUOTE

linuxglobe on 27th Sep 12: “I just want to own Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road on audiophile 180 gram vinyl; I have a usb turntable, easily import into my iPhone! I *HEART* Los Beatles!!! @MarkusMcLaughln

Having made initial test cuts, Magee pinpointed any sound problems that can occur during playback of vinyl records. To rectify them, changes were made to the remasters with a Digital Audio Workstation. For example, each vinyl album was listened to for any ‘sibilant episodes’ – vocal distortion that can occur on consonant sounds such as S and T. These were corrected by reducing the level in the very small portion of sound causing the undesired effect. Similarly, any likelihood of ‘inner-groove distortion’ was addressed. As the stylus approaches the centre of the record, it is liable to track the groove less accurately. This can affect the high-middle frequencies, producing a ‘mushy’ sound particularly noticeable on vocals. Using what Magee has described as ‘surgical EQ,’ problem frequencies were identified and reduced in level to compensate for this.

This is nice and all and it's too bad it couldn't have been done as the norm back when vinyl was the best sounding format available, but man, this sure makes a good case for how much better digital is.

I wonder if they'll ever release the non-limited masters digitally. Paul McCartney has been very kind in making them available for his remastered albums, but the company seems either to have a plan for making as much money out of these Beatles albums as possible by spacing out releases on different formats, or they don't want people to have a perfect version so they don't take away all reasons to buy the albums again later. Really, I doubt the compression and limiting made much of an audible difference if you were to match levels since it wasn't done to an extreme, there's just a wave of anti-compression sentiment amongst audiophiles due to the loudness wars. What I'd ideally like to see is remixes, whether stereo or surround, from the multi-tracks like they did with the Yellow Submarine Songtrack, which would remove a tape generation and (hopefully) be mixed better than they were in the '60s. That would be a legitimate reason to shell out for them again after the remasters. Of course, there's also a purist, "original is best! All changes are bad!" mentality to be overcome there too, unfortunately.

Having made initial test cuts, Magee pinpointed any sound problems that can occur during playback of vinyl records. To rectify them, changes were made to the remasters with a Digital Audio Workstation. For example, each vinyl album was listened to for any ‘sibilant episodes’ – vocal distortion that can occur on consonant sounds such as S and T. These were corrected by reducing the level in the very small portion of sound causing the undesired effect. Similarly, any likelihood of ‘inner-groove distortion’ was addressed. As the stylus approaches the centre of the record, it is liable to track the groove less accurately. This can affect the high-middle frequencies, producing a ‘mushy’ sound particularly noticeable on vocals. Using what Magee has described as ‘surgical EQ,’ problem frequencies were identified and reduced in level to compensate for this.

This is nice and all and it's too bad it couldn't have been done as the norm back when vinyl was the best sounding format available, but man, this sure makes a good case for how much better digital is.

I wonder if they'll ever release the non-limited masters digitally. Paul McCartney has been very kind in making them available for his remastered albums, but the company seems either to have a plan for making as much money out of these Beatles albums as possible by spacing out releases on different formats, or they don't want people to have a perfect version so they don't take away all reasons to buy the albums again later. Really, I doubt the compression and limiting made much of an audible difference if you were to match levels since it wasn't done to an extreme, there's just a wave of anti-compression sentiment amongst audiophiles due to the loudness wars. What I'd ideally like to see is remixes, whether stereo or surround, from the multi-tracks like they did with the Yellow Submarine Songtrack, which would remove a tape generation and (hopefully) be mixed better than they were in the '60s. That would be a legitimate reason to shell out for them again after the remasters. Of course, there's also a purist, "original is best! All changes are bad!" mentality to be overcome there too, unfortunately.

Remixes!!

That would be a very good reason to buy more Beatles albums.

I'm one of those few herectics who love the 80s digital remixes of Help! and Rubber Soul.